This blog is a great opportunity to share ideas about ways to
transform schooling as we know it, to help all students realise their
talents, passions and dreams. Be great to hear from anyone out there! Feel free to add a comment to Bruce's Blog and enter e-mail to receive postings

Friday, September 02, 2016

It''s about learning/ assessment/ the arts/ creativity and how boys learn

‘Providing pupils with mobile devices is an enormous decision for
any school, and it is one that

No 'silver bullet'

must be considered carefully. If you start from
the assumption that providing pupils and staff with shiny slabs of aluminium
and glass is all that is required and that everything else will take care of
itself afterwards because “the children know how to use them anyway”, then
you are in for a shock. Bringing in hundreds of mobile devices and only then
worrying about the pillars that will prop up your mobile learning project is a
recipe for disaster.’

‘Good-looking boys have hit the jackpot when it comes to success at
school and university. But girls who perhaps aren't known for their looks could
be in trouble. It's called the "halo effect" and it's having a
noticeable impact on students' grades.’

Focusing on tests and invalid assessments is the wrong way to
measure teacher quality

Another link from Phil Cullen:

‘

Trust teacher- let kids learn

Recent policies such as the rise of the inspectorate and the use of
graduation tests for students and teachers in Australia seem to be taking us
back to the old world of external, invalid measures. The assessment of teaching
should start with respecting teachers rather than inspecting them.’

‘A maxim that I have been testing, applying and thinking about a
great deal over the last few years is that “nothing changes unless
mindset changes.” On reflection, admittedly it is a little extreme, however it
does present an urgent (and often much needed) provocation regarding the way we
are thinking about learning in schools and other organisations.’

‘What kind of work are students doing in your classroom? To what
end? What is the purpose of the work they are doing? Do they even know? Do you
know why you are assigning the things you assign? (Sorry, that last bit sounded
nasty, but we need to talk about this.) Think about the last thing you set
before your students, whether as an in-class task, or as homework. What was the
purpose of that work? The ready answer is perhaps, "To help them learn
<fill in the blank with appropriate content>." Okay, sure. I'm with
you there. But my question remains, and it really is more philosophical, I
guess: What is the real purpose of that work?’

A review of a movie about a very influential New
Zealand educator whose affect on Arts and Crafts was immense, back in the day
before New Zealand was severely damaged by the current neoliberal agenda.

Gordon Tovey: A most influential educator

‘The film explains how Tovey hand picked high performing students
from various teacher training colleges, invited them to an interview and then
had conversations with them about what they liked doing artwise. He then selected a group to take to Dunedin
to train as Art Specialists. These Art Specialists were then sent all over the
country to run workshops for teachers and do demonstrations in classrooms to
encourage teachers to have the confidence to teach art. This was part of Beeby's plan to change the
appearance of classrooms in accordance with his modernisation of the education
system.’

‘Nearly all great ideas follow a similar creative process and this
article explains how this process works. Understanding this is important
because creative thinking is one of the most useful skills you can possess.
Nearly every problem you face in work and in life can benefit from creative
solutions, lateral thinking and innovative ideas.’

John Taylor Gatto: Why schools don't educate. If you’ve not read his work, now’s a
good time to start.

‘We live in a time of great school crises, Gatto began his
presentation, ‘and we need to define and redefine endlessly what the word
education should mean. Something is wrong. Our school crisis is a reflection of
a wider social crisis – a society that lives in the constant present, based on
narcotic consumption’ In his 25 years of teaching Gatto has noticed that
schools and schooling are increasingly irrelevant. The truth is, he believes,
schools don’t teach anything but how to obey orders not withstanding the
efforts of countless human caring teachers. In spite of the teachers hard work
the institution of school is psychopathic – it has no conscience. Every thing
revolves around the bell, timetable and fragmented learning.’

‘Education is too important for adults to take so seriously - such
seriousness kills the creative spirit that is every child's evolutionary
inheritance. Schools, like doctors should at least do no harm! Progress depends
on first imagining possibilities. As Einstein said,'Imagination is more
important than knowledge for knowledge is limited whereas imagination embraces
the entire world stimulating progress giving birth to evolution'.He also said
it was a miracle that children's' sense of wonder was not crushed by modern
schooling.’

‘Sometimes it seems easier to think about who succeeds at schools
than who don't. All too often schooling does not suit boys. This is the thesis
of a book, yet to be published, by Massey University Education Lecturer Michael
Irwin. My blog is simply an edited extract published in the Sunday Times. It
would seem to be a book well worth acquiring. Much of what the extract says
reflects what those who have long believed important - an activity/inquiry arts
based programme is the basis of productive learning. And such programmes would
also suit girls by making them more adventurous? And it makes light of the
Government’s current push to focus even more on literacy and numeracy with
their reactionary National Standards!’